"The central doctrine of Christianity, then, is not that God is a bastard. It is, in the words of the late Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe, that if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you."--Terry Eagleton

"It is impossible for me to say in my book one word about all that music has meant in my life. How then can I hope to be understood?--Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice."--Bryan Stevenson

Thursday, July 13, 2017

President of the School Yard

Trump has two defensive positions for any charge brought against him. His favorite is to point the finger at someone else, usually Hillary Clinton. That's the "But he/she did it, too!" defense. So Trump's campaign coordinated (forget "colluded") with the Russian government? Well, Hillary colluded with the government of Ukraine! Except, of course, she didn't; at all. And the claim that she did doesn't mitigate the actions of the Trump campaign. Which leads to the second defense, the one he's now rolled out for Jr.'s e-mails: "Everybody else was (would be) doing it!"

So, why are you picking on him? Somebody else did it, and you didn't pick on them! Or, if that doesn't work or directly apply, then everybody else would do it, too! The defense is basically the same: if everybody else does it, then you can't say it's wrong for Trump to do it, because if everybody's wrong then nobody's wrong.

It's the argument of a petulant child screaming 'No fair!' Except it's being advanced by a 71 year old man who is the President of the United States.